


Groundhog Lay

by Predatrix



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Anal Sex, Female Dominant, Het, Humor, Inspired by a Movie, Masturbation, Multi, Oral Sex, Sexual Humor, Slash, Xenophilia, quasi-Public Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-22
Updated: 2013-08-22
Packaged: 2017-12-24 01:14:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/933378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Predatrix/pseuds/Predatrix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the two people in the audience who have never watched <i>Groundhog Day</i>, think 'romcom where asshole learns not to be asshole by repeating same day a ridiculous number of times'.</p>
<p>And of course it's Avon, because he's the fandom's Little Black Dress and fandom Bike (i.e. Goes With Everything).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Groundhog Lay

Groundhog Lay

Avon stretched. Another day on _Liberator_ began. They’d all started by having the morning wake-up call on shipwide-com, each of them choosing a different style, but nobody liked each other’s taste in music. Vila liked pop songs, jingles, and Zen imitating the average Delta-radio dome-jockey at the start of each day. Jenna liked tearjerking ballads about lost loves or pilots on heroic suicide missions who saved humanity. Gan liked worker-songs from farming communes, with choruses about “Every day our quota rises, every day our hearts the same”. Blake, of course, liked protest songs, and had a fine collection of music whose very possession would forfeit the use of one’s ears under the present administration. Cally had some music designed for meditation, using the new Auron twenty-tone system: the only reason _that_ didn’t create a riot was that the telepathic parts of the broadcast were only audible to telepaths. As for himself, he preferred a selection of baroque-to-classical ancient chamber music trickling into his ears, which was entirely unexceptionable except for the fact that everyone except him slept right through it. Since then, everyone had a tacit agreement to manage their waking-up individually. 

This morning, Pachelbel’s _Canon_ flowed gently in, lapping him in soft sweetness, before the ambient light increased to a reasonable equivalent of an Earth morning (still hard-wired into the brain after several centuries post-spaceflight). 

“Good morning, sir,” Zen intoned deferentially, “may I suggest the black trousers with the charcoal-grey shirt and dove-grey tunic? Your tea is prepared.” He heard the faint clink of cup and saucer being delicately placed on the bedside table. “It is a fine day on Earth (the Supreme Commander is having a military parade again), rainy season on Palmero, and poor visibility with blizzards on Albian,” Zen continued. 

“I’ll wear the new leather outfit,” Avon said, sipping the tea. He could hear robotic arms reproachfully reorganising his personal wardrobe. He refused to feel guilty. The elegant butter-soft creamy-white trousers were just slightly too revealing, and if it wasn’t for the wardrobe-room they’d have cost one of the many small fortunes this ship was in possession of, but he liked them. 

He could hear the slight hum of Zen’s voice processor reorganising itself from emulating the imagined voice of Reginald Jeeves, circa 1920. Time for breakfast. After a shower, a shave, and careful adjustment of his best leather clothes, he went to the galley. 

“Cheese sandwich, please,” he asked the food-processor. “No—make that salmon, not cheese.” After all, his reading of highly contraband P.G. Wodehouse booktapes seemed to suggest that fish was good for the brain. He alternated bites of salmon-sandwich with gulps of very strong black coffee. Easing into the day with a cup of best-quality Earl Grey (with thinly-sliced lemon) was the first and last luxury he allowed himself. All the rest of the day, that he’d spend with the penance of other people, must be coffee-fuelled, with the ever-present excuse of work to stop sociability dead in its tracks. 

Vila came in, hurried to a high cupboard, and tipped something suspiciously green from an unmarked bottle into some fruit-juice. 

He gave Vila a look. 

“Lime juice. And vitamin supplement,” Vila said, injured. 

“Why is it frothing like that?” 

“Natural goodness?” said Vila. 

Avon sighed. Vila’s never-ending search for an equivalent of soma which was cheaper, more discreet when mixed with fruit juice, and above all not locked away in the medical centre most of the time, could be a bit of a trial. 

Vila was in the middle of a comment on Avon had a bit of cheek to go sighing at him for having fruit juice for breakfast, when he took a sharp breath. This was an unusual enough occurrence when Vila was in the middle of a comment on _anything_ that Avon looked round, and nearly spilled his coffee. Vila, having put the glass of green stuff down, was gazing longingly at his leather trousers, and their contents. 

“Oh, _you’re_ a beautiful garment, now aren’t you?” Vila breathed to the trousers. “Where have you been all my life, and did you know about my spectacular talent for opening things which people are trying to keep shut?” 

“Shall I take them off and leave you to make love to them in peace?” Avon asked dryly. He didn’t blame a notorious coward for trying to flirt with the clothes first because they were less likely to take violent exception to it, but he never liked to be ignored. 

“Either that, or the other way round,” said Vila happily, delicately tracing the outline of Avon’s cock and balls on the soft leather with a fingertip. 

“Isn’t that a little indiscriminate?” 

“I’ll have you know,” Vila said, “I’m very discriminating. I only pick people who are....” 

“...breathing, but you’ll settle for clothes, or possibly an inflatable,” Avon drawled. 

The door opened. 

Blake said, “Are you coming on the next mission? To Meriolo?” He spoke perfectly normally, as if there was nothing odd about the situation at all. Nothing odd to his _brain_ , at least. His cock was stirring lazily, outlining itself against the cloth of his trousers, as if it was perfectly aware of the elements of the situation that the brain was missing out on. 

Avon abruptly became aware that he was practically allowing Vila to do whatever he was doing. He stood up, clumsily, and stepped back. 

“Either of you?” continued Blake. Part of Avon found that an interesting thought. _Oh. The mission._

“OK, if I’m around at the time,” agreed Vila cheerfully. Having an unparalleled talent for being absent when he wanted to be, Vila only whinged about what people wanted him to do on the flight deck, when they wanted him to get on with it immediately. Anything else—he’d simply happen not to be there. Avon had tried absenting himself, but Blake seemed to have a talent for finding him knee-deep in tech, and would in that case simply keep asking. 

“No,” said Avon. 

“Not sure?” said Blake vaguely. “Might ask you later.” 

“I said no,” Avon repeated. If one kept repeating the word ‘no’ long enough, it might sink in. It had never happened yet, but there was always a first time. 

“Wrong time to ask? I’ll try later,” Blake told him, infuriatingly, and went out. 

Avon went out next, to the gym. Not one of his usual ports-of-call for the morning, but it had the great virtue of being somewhere where Vila was unlikely to catch up with him. Instead, he found Cally, who took an unprecedented interest in his exercise routine and then remarked that he looked very good in those trousers. 

He fled. 

On the flight deck, Gan said, “You look nice, Avon.” 

Even Jenna raised a delicate blonde eyebrow and said, “Frivolities, Avon?” He cursed his own tendency to compliment her attractiveness in a manner that almost counted as an insult. He was feeling rattled enough today without this. 

As a last resort, he joined Blake at the teleport. At least Blake wouldn’t say anything about his appearance. 

Blake didn’t. 

When Avon landed, staggering, with one foot in a very large puddle, Blake turned back from where he was greeting a verminous local rebel with immense bonhomie, and offered his hand. 

Avon muttered, “This is the sort of thing that happens to _Vila!”_ and disgustedly accepted the hand. 

Blake looked as if he was trying not to laugh, for a second, then returned to his conversation. The trying-not-to-laugh was the most attention Avon got from him all day. 

It had been an unusual day, he decided later. Something about it had left him wildly sexually aroused, not that that would be an abnormal reaction to being generally pursued. He took himself in hand vigorously. Just for a moment, some peculiar light-effect seemed to shimmer in front of his eyes. The intensity of coming blanked his mind, although he heard himself gasping a name. The words, _The least I could do is remember who I was thinking about,_ seemed to peel softly from the walls of his skull and fall down, down, down, into blackness.

* * *

Avon stretched. Pachelbel’s _Canon._ Zen saying...exactly the same things as yesterday, weather forecasts and all. 

“What, _again?”_ he said, to the Supreme Commander’s plans. Military parades were among her favourite recreations (beside torture, treachery and shopping for clothes), but two days in succession seemed a little excessive. Zen ignored his comment. 

As he smoothed down the sheets, he felt very uneasy. He _knew_ what had happened last thing last night, and he knew it had been rather thorough, and he’d been too tired to get up and clean up. But the sheets were clean and dry, and he wasn’t sticky. 

Avon said, “All right,” to Zen’s sartorial suggestions, a little shudder of unease creeping over him. Zen was far too well-trained a valet to come up with the same suggestion two days in succession. Not that he believed he was having a re-run of yesterday all over again, but he might as well change. To his horror, the cream leathers were held out to him again. 

He found Vila drinking home-made soma-and-lime again. 

He said something different to Blake, but Blake just went forward over the conversation like a juggernaut, turning it into ‘are you coming on the next mission?’ no matter what he talked about. He cursed. He found himself going with Blake, again, not at all sure why, and landing with his foot in the puddle, again.

* * *

The next nine days were a painful mirror-image of the first. He struggled to make little changes, but reality tended to stretch-to-fit: if he insisted on other clothes than the clothes Zen had suggested, Vila would spill his drink on them (and enjoy mopping it up), after which Avon would change into the leathers. Blake would still talk about work _whatever_ he said, but that was normal anyway. 

On the tenth day, he found himself raising an empty gun against some troopers, and smiling. Smiling, because at least death would get him out of... 

On the eleventh day, he wondered why a selection of pleasant things (Pachelbel’s Canon, tea with lemon, cream leather suit, the admiring gazes of other people) could make him wish he had managed to commit suicide. If he had been someone just a little more stupid (Travis, for example), he would actually have kept trying at suicide, but he decided once was enough to make the point. 

On the twelfth day, he hit on the idea of not masturbating at the end of the day: it was a clean break with the past which he could perform (not perform) entirely without reference to other people. He found it surprisingly difficult. He ached. Every time he stopped thinking and relaxed, his hand would creep round his cock. 

He had a cold shower. This worked until he stopped shivering and rubbed himself briskly with a towel. 

Then he just lay on the bed, wriggling and squirming in agonies of frustration. 

“What’s going _on?”_ he snarled to himself, grinding his teeth. 

Orac cleared its throat from beneath the bed. “For the past twelve days you have been caught in a rare phenomenon known as a time vortex,” it told him. 

About the fourth time it had started again on its complicated explanation and Avon had said, “What?”, it cleared its throat. 

“Masturbate yourself, Avon,” Orac suggested, clinically. 

“Don’t tell me _you’re_ after me as well!” Avon choked, a touch of hysteria coming to the fore. Surprise had lost him his grip on his willpower, although he was only to realise that later. 

“Organics are at the mercy of their hardware and its instinctual programming,” it said calmly, “therefore it would make sense to remove the temporary obstruction in the functioning of your intellect. If you are embarrassed, you may remove my...” 

Avon, by this time, had both hands on his cock and balls and was working himself savagely. He cried out something as he came hard. 

“...activation key,” Orac finished. 

_What?_ he thought, again. He was instantly deeply asleep. He could hear something tut-tutting faintly and remarking, _Humans!_ with resigned despair. The word seemed to peel off from the walls of his skull and fall down, down, down, into the darkness. 

* * *

The next morning, while Zen eased its way through Pachelbel’s _Canon_ and its perfect-valet act, Avon and Orac were engaged in a council of war. It was quite helpful, although Avon suspected that this was more to do with it being desperate to find a way out than it being really interested in helping people. Apparently, time vortices were uncommon even as far as temporal anomalies went. They were fairly localised, but hard to get out of. They appeared to cross-react with the unfortunate sapient who got caught in them until he or she managed to change either events or his/her own nature enough to shunt time on its proper way once more. Judging by the last event in Avon’s repeated day, it appeared to be locked into emotion. 

“I don’t _have_ any,” he told Orac. 

“Sexuality, then.” 

Avon sighed. He was bisexual, with a slight bias towards emotional involvement with women and physical attraction to men, although to be fair that was more political and social pressure than anything else: sex as an uninvolved transaction was simply easier to find with men, unless one brought money into the equation, and he’d never wanted to do it with whores. He would be physically capable of fucking every human crewmember of _Liberator,_ which might mean this would take a while to test. Oh well, if he had to, he had to. It wasn’t an unbelievably terrible day, and it was, presumably, better than getting killed, but it would become an unspeakable torture in, at most, a month. Simply the exact predictability would be too much for him. He’d prefer a little happy experimentation to possible insanity. 

This time, when Vila slid an impertinent finger around his cock and balls, he purred, “I’d like to see how good those hands really are,” but stepped back quickly. “Not now. I am accustomed to rather better than a semi-public grope.” _And I need to be in bed to conduct the experiment,_ he decided. 

“Come on, let’s see if you’re worth the trouble,” Vila said, pouting his lips for a kiss and pulling Avon close. 

Vila was a good— _very_ good—kisser. Avon was enjoying himself too much to stop when the door opened. Anyway, it would only be Blake, who was so focused on the Revolution that he never seemed to notice. 

_“Avon?”_ said Blake doubtfully. Avon opened his eyes. Those dark gold eyes were finally fixed on him with an astonished intensity, as if he’d never really seen him before. Avon’s cock responded immediately: the lazy lively friendly response Vila’s tongue in his mouth was drawing forth was suddenly overlaid by an iron-hard instant rigidity. _Almost a pity I’m already taken for this round,_ he decided. Blake, though, having no apparent sexual interest in him (at least not consciously), was right at the back of the queue. Avon was going to discover his damned way out without having to resort to forcibly seducing a political eunuch. If he had anything to say about it, which he ought to considering this was about his body and mind. 

Avon disengaged himself without hurry or visible embarrassment. He gave a proprietorial squeeze to Vila’s left buttock, and said, “Later,” low in his throat. 

“Yes, Blake?” he enquired, less intimately. 

“Are you coming on our next mission? To Meriolo?” Avon was wearily mouthing the words along with Blake by now, not out of any spirit of support. Blake didn’t seem to have noticed that. His eyes had gone slightly unfocused, and he was absently massaging his balls, then drawing a fingertip around the outline of a cock beginning to stiffen. Which would all have been very nice, but... _damned if I’m going to get involved on the strength of half an erection and half a brain!_ he thought crossly. If Blake bestirred himself enough, Avon might even deign to add him to the queue of crewmates waiting for his attentions, but a casual glance of interest was rather little, rather late, compared with how flatteringly everyone else was pursuing him. And he wasn’t going to lower himself to pursue Blake, at least while there were other people to... 

He really ought to look away now. Even if it was a big cock, fairly fully erect by now, that didn’t change the situation. 

He noticed that his polymorphously-perverse pet Delta was looking too. “D’you think he’s ever fancied threesomes?” he whispered in Avon’s ear. 

“I haven’t,” Avon replied furiously, “so you’ll have to content yourself with one of us.” _Not that the thought of me, Blake and Vila in a big bed isn’t intriguing, but Orac seems to suggest that the key is finding out who I want._

“Sorry you two, didn’t catch that,” said Blake vaguely, and took himself and his cock away. 

Vila immediately returned to kissing Avon: serpentine and then fluttery tongue-strokes that made him practically melt right there on his feet. Avon shut his eyes. In the darkness, Blake was still there, watching them, eyes not moving from the pair of them as he fumbled with his trousers, revealing a large, thick cock. Avon licked faster, suggestively, into Vila’s mouth, as he imagined Blake fucking his fist desperately, calling out something, a name, touching him and Vila with nothing but a long spurt of come... 

Vila eased out of the kiss, doing his best to hold Avon up. “Bloody Alphas,” Vila grumbled gently, “can’t take you anywhere.” 

“What?” said Avon, reaching a hand to brush his thigh, the outside of which was perfectly clean. It had seemed so _real._

“You’re all so deprived it doesn’t take much,” Vila said. “Seem to go for months, isn’t natural.” He undid Avon and mopped up with a hankie. “Will you last until tonight now?” 

Avon murmured “Tonight?” as if to say _Where am I and what was that?_ Vila began to laugh, then made him a cup of espresso. Avon apologised for his bad manners. For a moment he wondered, _does that count as my go with Vila,_ but decided that even if it didn’t matter about being in bed, which he doubted, it was only fair to give Vila a turn. It wasn’t as if he wouldn’t enjoy giving Vila pleasure. 

The experience had already given him a lot to think about. He forgot not to fall into the puddle, as usual.

* * *

That evening, he carefully changed his trousers and showered before inserting Orac’s activation key for today’s briefing. 

“Have you discovered anything?” Orac asked him, as soon as he could. 

“Well, Vila’s an excellent kisser...” _That’s a suitably expurgated version of today’s today_ , he decided. _I am certainly not going to cosy up to Orac and admit I came in my trousers at the first kiss._ “...and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s a suitable candidate,” he admitted. 

“Is that what humans would regard as a cold way of looking at it?” Orac suggested. 

“Of course. But I’m not in the market for a continuing relationship. As soon as time moves on, none of this nonsense will have happened, and I can get back to my work.” 

Orac might have answered that. He would never know, because just then he saw the lock on his door being silently and expertly undone. 

“Good evening, Vila,” he said, taking Orac’s activator key out. 

“Don’t snuggle up to computers,” Vila told him, “too many sharp corners.” He helped Avon shunt Orac under the bed. 

“Ah?” suggested Avon intimately, “who else might I snuggle up to?” He kissed Vila, managing a fair degree of ‘snuggling’. 

“Mmm,” said Vila. “You’re not bad when someone’s taken the edge off.” Avon explored Vila’s cock with one hand, fondling it and plumping it and feeling Vila give a happy little sigh next to his ear. A good shape: rounded and responsive. It wasn’t the biggest he’d ever had, but it was undeniably a friendly beast, curving nicely up to his hand. He undid it, and found it an attractively rosy colour as well. After all, something the size of Blake’s (and he’d never even seen it ready for action; the suppressants on the _London_ had a lot to answer for) would be difficult to cope with in practical terms. Managing to suck, or get fucked by, Vila, would be altogether less of a problem. 

“What would you like to do, Vila?” 

Vila looked at him. 

“What?” 

“Never expected you’d _ask_ me.” 

“I don’t go in for coercion,” Avon said, rather crossly. 

“Well, no. You’re an Alpha, and judging by the way you are out of bed, I assumed you’d be a, sort of, ‘We Are Doing This’ type. Not that I have any problem with that, it’s just...” 

Avon kissed him, which did very well at shutting him up, as well as allowing Vila to display his osculatory talents once more. Meanwhile, Avon explored him with both hands. Vila was taller and more muscular than one might have thought, these being attributes that tended to hide beneath the most baggy, comfortable, altogether awful clothes that the wardrobe room could provide. _I have better hair, though. Or at least more of it._ He stroked through Vila’s hair, rather wishing it was thicker or springier against his fingers. Anyone with that sort of tongue, and those fingers, could be forgiven a lot, though. His own hands wandered down: neck, back...lower. 

Vila stopped kissing. “D’you think I’ve got a nice bum, Avon?” 

“I’m just amazed any part of you has muscles, Vila. Perhaps all the sitting-on-it counts as exercise.” 

“You’re multi-talented for an Alpha,” Vila retorted amiably. “I mean, most of you lot need a map to find your _own_ arses, let alone anyone else’s.” 

Avon snorted. “Don’t judge me by the less mentally-equipped members of my caste, please. I have always known that mine is,” he guided Vila’s hand to it, “here.” 

Vila explored in turn. “What happened to the class-prejudice?” 

“I’m very rational about it,” Avon told him. “I wouldn’t trust you with the best silverware, nor to know your way around a wine-list...” 

Vila began to look indignant. 

“...but on the other hand you have an excellent figure, hidden beneath appalling dress-sense, the less said about which the better.” 

“Is that a posh way of saying I’ve a nice double handful of arse?” Vila asked him, both hands busy behind Avon to illustrate his point. 

“You have no class, Vila,” Avon said, trying to glare repressively down his nose and finding his eyes kept wanting to close in pleasure. He sighed. He _liked_ a man’s strong hands groping him that way, especially while he was doing the same to his opponent. A mock show-of-strength that relaxed any tensions that had built up during the day. 

Vila slid his hand inside Avon’s trousers and underpants. He liked that even more. The hand was warm against his buttock. He made an encouraging noise, throatily, and continued, “And, to continue with the compliment, you seem to know your way around me. Maybe a proper education is unnecessary in some areas.” 

He waited. Vila didn’t disappoint him. “I’d like to give you an _im_ proper education,” he announced, squeezing. Nearly rough. Avon liked that sometimes, and this was one of those times. He moaned a little, and let his eyes close, relaxing into a fantasy where a big man with no name, no face, but plenty of enthusiasm, was manhandling him. He was, annoyingly enough, just as impatient as if he’d had no sexual contact whatsoever today. 

“All right, hang on a minute, Avon, we’ve got all…” Vila’s conversation trailed off as Avon dragged him on top. “You’ve convinced me,” Avon panted. “Start educating!” 

Vila withdrew from the kiss for long enough to mutter something about ‘our lot got suppressants, I’m beginning to think the higher-grades got Viagra’. Avon took exactly no notice of that, being too busy trying to stop himself rubbing his cock against Vila while Vila helped him off with his trousers, mumbling cheerfully about ‘haven’t got enough sense to get undressed without a nanny’. Avon paid no attention to that, because now they were undressed he could go after what he wanted, and he tugged a pillow under himself and presented his rump. 

“Didn’t think you Alphas liked it that way r—” said Vila, rather muffled by Avon dragging him on top again, and “All right, all right, didn’t say I objected, did I?” as he began to lubricate Avon. Avon sighed happily: the hands were good, clever and maybe a little too gentle, but they were giving him at least some of the pleasure he’d wanted. One hand spreading him open, while a finger stabbed softly into him, then two fingers, then playful stretching and sliding and stroking with fingers and the tip of Vila’s cock. 

“More!” he snapped. He wasn’t precisely in the mood for something delicately playful. 

Vila slid his cock all the way in. _More!_ Avon wanted to demand, wanting something rougher and thicker and altogether more-of-it, but that didn’t make sense and would only upset Vila, so he panted and groaned as Vila finally came to rest on him, not-quite-heavy-enough. He swore under his breath at his own subconscious, which was being annoying, and clamped greedily onto Vila’s cock. 

“That’s what you wanted, was it?” Vila said, sounding amused, and Avon tightened himself again. “All right then, if you’re in so much of a hurry I’ll start to move.” Which Vila did. That made the experience more involving, and Avon clenched a hand into the bedclothes, because there was a very good reason Vila ought to come first, although he’d forgotten what it was, and he muttered something encouraging to Vila, heard him catch his breath (at a loss for words for the first time since Avon had known him), felt him tense and come, and let himself tumble over the edge into his own orgasm, shouting a name. 

“Should have known that was what it was all about,” Vila said, more as if rueful than angry. “And you think _I’m_ the coward.” But the words did not make any sense as they fell down, down, down, into the darkness of Avon’s mind and he fell down, down, down, into sleep.

* * *

“Vila wasn’t it,” he told Orac the next day. After the usual preliminaries, he went to the gym, this time prepared for any comments about his clothing. 

_Did anyone ever tell you how attractive you look in that outfit, Avon?_ Cally asked him. 

“Strangely, yes,” Avon replied, “but I have no objection.” 

She sat down beside him. “What are human sexual customs? I have no wish to offend any cultural norms held by your people.” 

He told her that the human view of sex involved doing it often, repeatedly and well, with no restrictions on that, sparing a thought to be glad Auron/Human telepathy worked the other way round, and gazed into her eyes. He would certainly not have been fool enough to try such a thumping lie on someone he knew and liked, ordinarily, but this was an action without consequences, insofar as that was possible. Tomorrow, she would have forgotten all about it. 

“Oh,” she said doubtfully. 

“And we don’t like causing pain, so take that look off your face.” He kissed her nose. 

“It’s just, our gossip seems to suggest that your sexuality is more restrictive than ours.” 

“Don’t believe everything other people think,” he told her, mock-sternly. 

“So the story about being given to another person for life by one’s parents isn’t true?” 

“Only in a few cultures. Not mine.” Avon could only be glad of that. He would not have reacted well to an arranged marriage. “We have stories about your people, occasionally. They say you have sex with your clones in one big bed.” 

“That’s silly. Clone-groups can grow quite big, you couldn’t fit them into a normal-sized bed.” 

He smiled in relief. “So you don’t have sex with your clones?” 

“Of course we do. Why wouldn’t we?” 

_Maybe an incest taboo wouldn’t mean much to a people with their reproductive technology, but..._ “Isn’t that just a little narcissistic?” 

Now she was shocked. “Because they look the same? They’re different people. Different, but close.” 

He kissed her, partly in order to get the image of Cally rolling around with—another Cally—out of his head. _When we have sex, it doesn’t depend on the body, she explained. We can have sex when we’re miles away from each other, as long as we have good range._

He felt a hand stroking his bottom, another hand caressing his cock, another hand fingering through his hair, and another hand outlining his lips, which felt strange considering he was kissing her. _I thought that would work,_ she told him. _It’s more of an effort with a human because humans don’t help it along._ He touched her hand. Yes, it had definitely been that hand. He slid a hand over the curve of her hip, down her thigh, feeling slightly outnumbered. 

_It’s very nice. For someone with only two hands._ Her eyes were bright with humour. 

He withdrew from the kiss. “But you’ve only got two _real_ hands. And neither of them are touching me.” 

_Shouldn’t I feel insulted? Isn’t this me— really? I thought even humans thought that the real person was the mind?_ He saw a fuzzy picture of a man in a wheelchair. It made his brain ache. He’d got a lot more used to ‘hearing’ than ‘seeing’. Odd that the tactile stimulation didn’t give him this momentary distortion, but he supposed it was because it didn’t appear to focus in on his brain in the same way, just ‘fooled’ his body. 

“What’s ancient medical tech got to do with this conversation?” he asked her. 

“Would you say,” she asked, using her voice, presumably for emphasis, “that such a man was less of a human being because his legs don’t work?” 

“No, I suppose not.” He thought about that. He’d never believed that Platonic ideals had any quantifiable existence, but he supposed that if one could point to them with one’s mind, the situation might be different. It must save on plastic surgery for Cally’s people. They would just _think_ themselves beautiful. _Not that she would need to,_ he thought, caressing her long hair and kissing her again. He liked curly hair, an extra tactile pleasure in the way it sprang against one’s hand. That was the only thing he’d missed when enjoying himself with Vila. Maybe Cally was the one his thoughts had become fixated on. Talking of hands, one of the phantom hands was gripped round his cock. He moved his hips gently into the stroke, allowing her to lead. 

_I could give you pleasure this way..._

_She certainly can!_ he thought to himself. 

_...but it would be more mutual if we undressed and lay down._

“I’m sorry. I seem to be forgetting my manners.” He let her move away, although the phantom arm lengthened impossibly for one last regretful caress as she went towards the door. My room, she told him. 

He followed her. Her room was very tidy, decorated in restful colours of blue and green, and had a strange abstract decoration in one corner, that he couldn’t quite see—or not-see. 

She glanced where he was looking, and draped a cloth over it. _Sorry._

“What is it?” 

_A meditation aid. It fascinates the eyes while I restore calm, so that I do not think about the outside world._

“I’m having difficulty thinking about the world outside this room. You seem to fascinate my eyes quite enough.” 

_Thank you. You are also beautiful._ Cally’s people seemed to be very straightforward. Very unguarded. Or perhaps it was just her. 

He laughed slightly. 

_What’s the matter? You are,_ she insisted. 

“Cultural bias,” he told her. “It’s a compliment that Earth men are more likely to give than to receive. You’re the first person to tell me that.” 

_And, I should imagine, not the last._

Having nothing to say to that, he kissed her delicately on the lips. 

A thought struck him, and he stopped. “Do Auronar kiss?” 

She opened her mouth to his, which he found an odd, almost spicy taste, and her tongue worked on his while she said, _I think we share some customs with Earth humans._ That comment arrived at the same time as a breathy moan. He wondered whether pure non-verbal sensuality or the social-explorer’s comment were a better reflection of her state of mind, but as she kept kissing, he decided it didn’t matter. There was a slippery sensation of not-quite-right-yet in the back of his head, as if the slim inquisitive mouth licking into him was not what he was in the mood for, and yet it was delicious, even if he had a faint awareness that it wasn’t quite perfect. It was still wonderful. And maybe she was the one he’d been thinking about.... 

_Yes, Avon. You’re good at that,_ she told him, and he gave a guilty start as if she’d been able to read his mind and discover his hidden agenda. He thought she was good at that, as well, but he’d have to stop kissing her to tell her, so he didn’t. 

His hands went behind her. She didn’t wear a bra. He wondered if that was an Auronar thing, or just her. He touched her breasts under her clothes, watching the interested nipples peak up. 

_How many clothes do Earth humans wear when performing this activity?_

He stopped kissing. “None.” 

_Just checking._

That had been a broad hint, so he started carefully removing her clothes. She sighed happily, then removed his. They spent a while admiring each other. She was slim, but well-proportioned. She was also beautiful. She didn’t look alien at all. 

_You don’t look alien at all, Avon. I couldn’t tell you weren’t one of us from your physical body, not even at this distance. Only the big difference, that you’re a mute._

“I can talk perfectly well.” 

_Only with your mouth._

He sighed. At about this point, he’d like to kiss her to shut her up, only it wouldn’t. 

_Avon?_

He kissed her anyway, and worked his way down by slow stages, kissing her a delicate necklace from throat to breasts. She flushed. Her nipples jutted up further. Her mouth opened slightly, but she didn’t speak, even internally. 

And down, meandering around her belly and further down. She opened her legs. Slowly, he reached for her. At this point, he discovered he had a problem. Where _was_ the damn thing? How it liked to be stimulated depended on the owner, but he shouldn’t have difficulty finding it, unless he’d forgotten since Anna. Although she was visibly aroused, he still couldn’t find it. And he wanted to. After that disgraceful exhibition with Vila, and after nearly repeating it in her mental hand, he needed to exhibit self-control. Even if, according to the body-clock his balls believed, he hadn’t had rampant sex yesterday, because yesterday hadn’t happened. 

_What are you doing, Avon?_ she sent, after a few minutes. 

He told her what the problem was, bluntly. 

_Oh, we have ours inside._

“Inside?” He couldn’t even begin to imagine why that difference might exist. 

_One of the little improvements we had added. It makes sense for a human woman to have her pleasure organ on the outside, where it will not get damaged by pregnancy and childbirth. Since we have cloning, we don’t have that problem. So we can keep ours inside, because the only likely reason for anything to go inside is sex._

“May I?” He explored her with fascinated fingers. Yes, he could find it now he knew where it was. She began to breathe faster, and move on his fingers. 

_Come on, then. I’m ready._

After some experimentation, and mental instructions on her part, he discovered a mutually pleasing rhythm. Once he had it right, she joined in with athletic enthusiasm. Surely this was right? Vila had been too gentle for what he was in the mood for, and she was strong, muscular and not holding back. Vila had stolen caresses with his clever thieving hands, and he hadn’t felt that was what he wanted. This was the ride of a lifetime, and he had to steady his hand on the pillow, enjoying the feel of her curls against his hand. Surely this _must_ be right... 

Maybe he was just picky, he decided. He paid particular attention to her alien clitoris, and she came. He counted as her flesh clamped onto him, desperately trying to retain control. He did it again. So did she. He felt happily in control. At least now he’d remember who he was thinking about. 

Then she did something with her internal muscles that slid-and-rushed along his cock, and his brain went white. He gasped something, possibly a name, and felt her horrified shock as if it was his own: Auronar were not used to people who shouted out other people’s names in bed. And now, as her scream of “How _dare_ you!” peeled from his ears and fell down, down, down, into the darkness inside his skull, he felt the appalled guilt of someone who would not be reproached for that social solecism tomorrow, but who also would have no chance of making things right. If she’d still been there five seconds later she’d probably have broken something over his head, but he was asleep now, which meant it was yesterday morning again. _What a bloody fiasco,_ he decided, and slept.  
  


* * *

The next day, he decided, would be Gan’s turn. He had decided to alternate women and men, although he was not quite sure whether this was to make things fairer or to make them more interesting. 

Unfortunately, he got into an argument with Blake about politics before he remembered. This was a pity. Not least because he was enjoying it. He’d occasionally noticed the minor personal quirk of finding his battles with Blake sexually arousing, but this was ridiculous. Just because the thing was used to being regularly serviced this week, that didn’t mean it was going to get anything out of the one crewmember that hadn’t noticed he was attractive. Especially considering he was never going to draw himself to Blake’s attention. _Don’t be greedy,_ he told it. _The way things are going, I can promise you a shot at everyone else._ It showed no interest in anyone else, just pointed at Blake like a compass needle. 

_He’ll notice!_ he told it. 

_Don’t be absurd,_ it said. _This thing has been going on for some time, and he hasn’t even noticed people are showing an unprecedented interest in you. He wouldn’t notice if—_

_If what?_ he asked it impatiently. 

_Suddenly I have a very bright idea,_ it told him. _You don’t really want to dash to the toilets and take care of me, considering Blake will probably take that as winning the argument._ Avon agreed that he hated losing the argument, but pointed out that he would also hate Blake noticing anything else. 

_Do you really think he would?_ it asked thoughtfully. _In this particular segment of reality, he doesn’t notice anything sexual about us, and if he did it would be gone tomorrow. So we might as well just—_

_shutupshutupshutup!_ he muttered soundlessly. 

_Pity. I’m usually quite good about your sexual fantasies. So you don’t find a perverse, forbidden excitement in the thought of playing with me in front of Blake, then? We’ll just have to think of another idea._

He stuffed a hand furtively down his trousers. Blake kept hectoring him, without looking. _Damn him!_ Avon thought. Equidistant between the opposing and frantic desires to be seen and not to be seen, he closed his eyes. Mmm, rubbing and stroking felt good, but slipping it out and using the whole of his hand would feel fucking fantastic, _yes, have to, yes!_ and it was in his hand, hard heavy strokes and squeezing. That nearly hurt, but he needed it. He let Blake’s voice flow over him, and imagined Blake rubbing and tugging at his cock. Big hand, big cock, not that he could see that from here, felt wonderful, hard and hot. His auditory processing clicked on for a second, to reveal Blake saying: 

“Are you coming?” 

“Oh _fuck_ yes!” snarled Avon, doing so. It took him about thirty seconds after the last aftershock to realise that Blake was, as usual, asking him to visit that sodding planet again. 

“Good,” Blake said. “I’ll collect my papers and meet you at the teleport. 

Avon stumbled after him, doing up his flies and thinking thoughts too deep for words about idiots who could reach adulthood without realising the difference between a reply and an involuntary ejaculation. 

As the teleport took him, and he materialised in the puddle again, he decided that tomorrow he’d push Blake into it. He held out his hand to be helped up, realising as he did so that it was the sticky one and he should have wiped up. 

Blake clasped it strongly and pulled. “What have you been doing with yourself, Avon?” he asked, apparently registering that it was messy. He lifted Avon’s hand to his nose and sniffed curiously, then licked. “Tastes nice, anyway.” He strode away, whistling, to meet the malodorous local rebel, and Avon was left with his thoughts, of which there were many. He was beginning to get another erection: at least he’d be capable of performing with tonight’s specimen, and he hadn’t even _thought_ of that while he was busy losing his mind earlier. 

Tonight’s lucky recipient would be Gan. He’d be glad to get that over with: this version of Gan had taken to following him about and giving him wistful looks, which he found trying. He’d prefer to be ignored.

* * *

It took a while for Gan to let him in and give him a drink. After that came a tedious half-hour in which Gan extolled the virtues of everyone else on board ship, “wouldn’t you rather be with Blake—or Cally—or Vila—or Jenna?” 

“Why is it so hard to believe I want to be here, with you?” Avon purred at him. 

“You don’t even talk to me much,” said Gan. 

“Maybe I’d prefer to have a conversation with one of those other people, but believe me, conversation is the last thing on my mind at present,” Avon told him. 

Gan looked woeful. 

Avon spared a moment to wonder how any human being could reach adulthood with such tender feelings. “I just find you attractive, it’s nothing personal,” he told Gan. 

“How can it be nothing personal? It’s to do with people. If nothing else, who you sleep with is to do with that. Why me, and why now?” 

Avon drew Gan’s fingers firmly between his legs. “I w-want to.” Most artistically, he let his voice stumble on the words, as if he was shy. He could see a trace of pity in Gan’s eyes, and momentarily missed the company of those others Gan had mentioned. Any of _them_ would have been able to tell that he was trying it on. 

Gan lifted the hand to Avon’s face. “You must have been so lonely, to come to me.” 

Avon had enough compunction not to point out that Gan was very nearly last on his list. Instead, he put his arms round him. Lonely? Hardly, with a steady procession of people queuing up for his bed. 

Which reminded him. He wasn’t actually _in_ his bed, and he ought to be. “I’d feel more comfortable doing this in my own bedroom,” he told Gan, and got up. 

Gan sighed, and followed him. 

As they settled together on the small and uncomfortable bed, Gan said, “I’m not exactly the prettiest, out of all of them.” 

_Not pretty,_ Avon thought, _but big._ He wriggled. Yes, _this_ was what he wanted. Not all the techniques that Vila or Cally could offer, but being hammered into the bed by a large, heavy man. That would stop him thinking, stop this ‘time vortex’ thing, and as a bonus, he wouldn’t even have to worry about emotions: this would all be over tomorrow, there would be a tomorrow, and he could forget the whole mess. 

He moved a little, so that Gan just about _fell_ on him, and the weight was _heaven_ , all he needed now was a cock inside him while that pressure did the job, and he was ready for it. 

“Sorry, Avon,” said Gan. “Clumsy of me.” He went to undress, slowly. Avon, seething, undressed properly as well. He’d wanted Gan to push his trousers down and shove it in, but obviously that wasn’t really Gan’s style. Unfortunately. He did his best at a slow strip, but Gan blushed. He mentally cursed Gan’s upbringing for worrying him out of the huge and uncomplicated fun they could be having by now. Then he sighed, lay down, held his arms out, and said, “Come on, then.” 

Gan lay down again, looking nervous. 

“It’s not as if I want to try out fifty different impossible positions,” Avon told him. “I just want you to fuck me.” 

“Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer a— I mean, oral sex?” Gan asked him. 

Avon snorted. “You can say ‘blow-job’ in front of me, you know. I won’t disappear.” _Well, not until I’ve got what I’m here for._

Gan looked scandalised. “Or we can...just touch or something.” 

Avon cuddled up, this being the simplest route to what he wanted. “I like fellatio, or frottage, or lots of other things,” he murmured in Gan’s ear, “but I _love_ being fucked.” 

“I’m too big,” said Gan sadly. “It would be dangerous.” 

Avon sighed and got up, rummaging under the bed for his toy-box. He opened it, and pulled out the larger of the two dildos, the one that was probably bigger than any human penis could be. 

“You were saying?” he inquired sweetly. In point of fact he’d only used it once, there _was_ such a thing as too big, but he wasn’t lying by implication because Gan wasn’t too big. Putting it back, he settled on the bed with his arse resting against Gan’s cock. Good. Gan might be worried, but he hadn’t lost it. 

“You’re sure that thing hasn’t caused you any damage?” Gan sounded shocked. 

“I checked.” And a bundle of fun _that_ had been, rigging up the medical scanner to see round corners, and getting closely acquainted with parts of himself he had never seen before and didn’t particularly want to see again. Better than being damaged or having to get a person in to look at him, though. 

He threw himself down on the bed and hoped Gan would just get on with it. 

Gan surprised him by taking him at his word. He undid the tube of lubricant, by the sound of it, and shoved a finger in. Gan’s finger seemed about as big as some men’s cocks, so Avon had to make an effort not to yelp. It had been a while, and when it was just himself he’d been likely not to bother with masturbating internally. It wasn’t too bad. After a bit of this, and after a few more fingers, he’d be quite ready to— 

He squeaked a little, as Gan removed the finger with unexpected speed.. 

“I’m glad you’re experienced,” said Gan. “It’s been a while for me, and I’m just as glad not to have to do it slowly.” _This isn’t happening!_ thought Avon. _You were supposed to be ever-so-careful-and-concerned, and do it slowly while I complained that I didn’t care and you should just fuck me!_ Well, he was fairly sure Gan wouldn’t actually really hurt him, it was his own bloody fault after all, and he was...too embarrassed to make a fuss about it. 

He looked round, and had just about time to notice that Gan looked quite serious, with a small frown as if he was concentrating, before something the approximate size of a small and inaccurately-aimed missile went in. He bit the pillow. 

“Do it again,” said Gan. Avon bit the pillow again, which apparently clenched his muscles from one end to the other. 

“You’re so tight,” said Gan. _Ow,_ thought Avon. 

“Tight as a virgin,” Gan panted, “and I know you’re loving it, just doing it for me.” He groaned, long and deep, pure innocent enthusiasm that began to melt Avon’s discomfort. _Ouch...but this could be passable, give it a few minutes,_ Avon thought to himself. 

A long hard thrust or two later, Avon was catching up to the condition he’d intended to be in. His cock and balls rubbed hard against the bedclothes, and Gan shoved equally hard against his prostate. _I was right, I was right, I was right!_ his mind exulted smugly, forgetting that he’d been having a few serious doubts about this a few minutes ago. 

Harder and harder, harder and _harder,_ nearly... 

Gan gave an especially loud groan, and went still. 

_Come on, come on!_ Avon thought. 

Gan pulled out, and panted. “God you’re good! Sorry I doubted the idea at first.” He panted. “You’re the best fuck I’ve ever had.” 

_A pity it’s not mutual._

“If you ever want some more, you know where I am.” Avon was still trying to grind his teeth quietly when Gan said, “Nearly forgot, I’d better make sure you’re all right.” He scooped two fingers into the lubricant, and slid them in. Avon, having no chance to brace himself against reacting to the sudden move, was suddenly awash in sexual fantasy: a big man was fingering him gently, not for erotic purposes at all, and he was trying not to react, but a touch was enough to... He came all over the bed, shouting out a name that wasn’t Gan’s. As the echo fell down, down, down, into the echoing dark inside his skull and he fell down, down, down, into sleep, he decided: _I should feel embarrassed about today. Thank god it didn’t actually happen._

* * *

Jenna was last in the queue. He was running out of options. 

_Still, it could be worse,_ he decided, as she went quite silent as he came in, looking at him in breathless admiration. Since she’d been talking to Blake before getting dumbstruck at his entrance, he found this quite flattering. Both of them were too alike to want to make a good impression on each other, so the effect was obviously involuntary. 

She looked at his boots, up his thighs, at his crotch (lingeringly) and upwards. She didn’t seem to want to talk to him, the attraction was purely physical, but after all those others wanting part of his mind as well as his body, it was nicely uncomplicated. He’d seen Blake get her full and undivided attention, and something simpler would certainly waste less time. After all, the object of the exercise was to get back to what was laughingly called normality on this ship. 

He turned, obligingly, and began to rummage in a cupboard under one of the consoles. 

“...and then we could get off-planet and they wouldn’t even realise we’d been there,” Blake continued. 

“Oh, _very_ nice,” breathed Jenna lustfully. 

“Glad you like the idea,” said Blake, and continued discussing tactics obliviously. 

Avon turned back to face them. Jenna leaned towards him for long enough to whisper, “You know, you could rig up something to play one of his speeches while we’re together. His voice and your body: it’d be incredible!” She giggled conspiratorially. Avon wasn’t quite sure whether to be outraged or not but just grinned back. After all, it wasn’t as if he’d dislike the idea, either. He even found Jenna likeable, although he’d be glad to keep this adventure more physical than emotional. 

Blake, having missed all this byplay completely, wound up his peroration. “Oh—Avon. Seeing as you’re here, I’m about to go down to Meriolo. Are you coming?” 

“No, he isn’t,” said Jenna matter-of-factly. “I always said someone would find a use for him some day, and I have. Come on then,” she said to Avon, off-hand, and swept out of the room. 

_Oh good, a dominant woman!_ thought his cock. He followed it, and her, quite happily. 

Jenna’s room was practical, with quite a few pictures up, mostly of people doing conga lines or dancing on tables at spaceport bars. There were a couple of pin-up boys as well. He stood up straight, and wished he’d led a less sedentary life, or at least had remembered to get Orac to set up an exercise machine in his cabin. Jenna was looking at him the way people look at chocolate, though, so he couldn’t be too bad. 

She’d got a lot more of the knack of getting out of a tunic sexily than he had, and he noted that down for reference. Her breasts were magnificent, and the smooth grey blouse did nothing to hide them. 

“Lie down,” she told him. He lay down. 

“No, not like that. Get your kit off!” He wondered if Servalan was this demanding. It was an interesting thought. He stood up, undressed as best he could, and lay down hurriedly, only just remembering to roll over onto his back this time. Force of habit. 

She didn’t seem to have noticed that, luckily. She was busy trying to undo her tight—very tight—trousers, and it seemed to take all her concentration. Avon was glad of that. He didn’t quite find it amusing, because he remembered certain even-tighter-than-the-ones-he-had-on trousers that required an undignified and uncomfortable struggle. 

Hers hadn’t removed her interest in sex. She threw her boots across the room, peeled down the trousers, and looked at him challengingly. He wriggled, feeling glad that yesterday hadn’t really happened and he didn’t have to wince every time his bottom moved against the sheets. No hope that Jenna wouldn’t notice that. 

He tried to tug her on top of him with a jerk of the wrist, but they’d both learned unarmed combat from the same person, and she was watching for that, freeing herself with a slightly-painful (for him) move. _“No,_ Kerr,” she said firmly. “If you want me to fuck you, you’ll have to earn it.” She positioned herself by the bed and opened her legs to reveal herself, pink and roused. 

He curled up into a more comfortable position to pay attention to her. He licked his lips. Then he licked hers, which appeared to be what was required, holding her open with gentle fingers while his tongue worked on her hard. She liked that, judging by all the panting and the lack of commands. If he didn’t have to wonder if he was about to sprain his tongue, he would be enjoying this nearly as much as she was. She was enjoying it quite a lot, and quite noisily. She came. He was about to ask her whether that was all right, when she jammed his head back into place none-too-gently, so he decided to do it again to make sure. They did. He stayed still afterwards, this time. 

“All right, all right!” she panted. “If I come any more standing up I’ll fall over. And I might take pity on you after all your hard work. And it’d be a pity not to use this…” she stroked Avon’s cock with one finger, “…after all, it _is_ as pretty as the rest of you.” 

She lowered herself gently down and stayed there without attempting to get started for five minutes, alternately resting and kissing. He wanted to ask her if she’d got her breath back now and would she get on with it, but he was quite sure that would result in further torment. Instead, he allowed himself to be kissed obediently. 

After five minutes, she said, grinning: “I’ve tortured you enough making you shut up for this long. Let’s get on with it.” 

He sighed happily as she inserted him and began to move. 

“Keep still!” 

Avon let her ride. It was less trouble than getting into another argument. She pulled his hand between them so that his thumb rested on her clitoris. “If you want to move, move that.” He made sure it was wet enough, and moved it rhythmically. 

“Go on.” He hadn’t intended to stop, it was more that he was going to come if she kept doing that, but he wasn’t physically capable of arguing. He was getting closer and closer to coming, and so was she, moving fiercely on him. 

He’d forgotten the question of who-he-wanted-to-be-with, after all simultaneous orgasm did take a bit of effort and concentration, so he was entirely unprepared when both of them opened their mouths and shouted “Blake!” at the same moment. 

_Oh shit,_ he thought as the echo fell down, down, down into the gathering darkness inside his skull, _that’s all I need._

He could, very faintly, hear Jenna sigh, and say “I’m not the only one to fall for the wrong man, am I?” and feel her slip her arms round him. He wished he could share that moment of fellow-feeling with her, but he was falling down, down, down into sleep, and already felt loneliness enclose him like an empty bed.

* * *

Pachelbel’s _Canon,_ again. Yes, he was in an empty bed _(loneliness? Ridiculous!_ he decided). He went through the motions with tea, shower and clothes, and settled down for a council-of-war with Orac. 

“How many have you gone through now, Avon?” _Has Orac always spoken in that bustling, self-important tone?_

“I have discovered who I was thinking about,” Avon said sadly. 

“Who?” demanded Orac. 

“Unfortunately, Blake,” Avon said. He took a meagre satisfaction in reducing Orac to utter baffled silence, which was something he almost never managed. 

“So your problems are at an end,” Orac told him eventually, “and I fail to see why you are taking up my valuable cycles.” 

“Clearly they are _not_ at an end,” Avon snapped, “since I am still in the time vortex.” 

“Have you engaged in sexual activity with Blake?” _Bustling, self-important, and prudish._

“No.” 

“Then do so!” it snapped. 

“But Blake—” Avon said. 

Orac was silent. 

“Are you losing your capacity?” 

Orac was silent. 

“This is ridic—” He shut his mouth with a snap. 

Orac was still silent. 

Avon wrenched the key out and threw it at the wall, then decided to go to the flight-deck and cheer himself up by being ignored. 

He was fascinated to find Vila sitting in Gan’s lap. Vila was drunk, of course, but seemed to be enjoying himself anyway. Gan was stroking Vila’s hair with serious, unhurried affection. The clumsy boor who had taken his turn in Avon’s bed had vanished as if he had never been—and he _had_ never been. It had taken Avon a while, but he had finally realised that what was going on had at least as much to do with his subconscious mind as with anyone else. When it had been Gan’s turn he’d been impatient and uncomfortable, thinking _get this over with and get back to normal._ Hardly surprising it hadn’t gone all that well. 

Even when Avon’s foot knocked against the side of a chair and Gan looked up, and eased Vila to one side, Gan wasn’t clumsy. Highly embarrassed and covered with what was probably an all-over blush, he still took the time to settle Vila beside him gently. 

“‘S’all right, Gan,” Vila said, “it’s only Avon.” He collapsed on Gan’s shoulder, blinking benevolently at each of them in turn. 

“Avon?” Gan echoed, sounding shocked. 

“He wouldn’t notice anything, most of ‘em are so unobservant they can’t find their own arses with a map,” Vila continued happily. 

Avon gave him a sharp glance. That hadn’t really happened, had it? Or had he simply picked up on something he’d heard Vila say before, and put it into his imaginings. 

Vila and Gan trotted off, possibly to find a bed big enough for both of them, and the sound of heels tapped its way in. 

Avon fitted the previous interaction carefully into his picture of the universe, then smiled slightly. It was nice not to be wanted. He didn’t like being the prize everyone was trying to win. He carefully smoothed the already-smooth leather over his thighs. Displacement activity. Usually he had a bit of circuitry in his hands, which was more fun and more productive to mess about with. 

But Jenna was, as expected, not interested in him. As her heels clicked past him on her way up to her console, she remarked absently: “Tight trousers won’t pull him, I’ve tried.” 

“What the _hell_ do you mean by that?” Avon whispered. 

“Mmm? Oh, sorry, just thinking aloud, just ignore me.” 

Avon was too rattled to do that. He was fairly sure from the look on her face that she hadn’t consciously been thinking he was after Blake: if nothing else, she was like him enough that she would have made it a careful, studied insult. She might have been thinking about her own affairs, or lack of them, or she might have been unconsciously aware she had that in common with Avon. 

He got up, trying not to look as if she’d put him to flight, and went in search of Blake. 

“Oh, Avon,” Blake said casually, “I’m just on my way to Meriolo. Are you—” 

“Why not?” _It might be amusing, or at least take my mind off things._

“Avon? Are you all right?” Blake looked at him closely. _Wonderful. Weeks of todays with Blake being sublimely unaware I have no interest in visiting Meriolo whatsoever, and now he notices I don’t really want to._

“Blake? Are you going to waste time asking me about my non-existent motives all day, or are we going to get your latest pointless little errand going?” 

“It’s all right,” said Blake. “I was getting a little startled at your wanting to be nice to me, but it’s worn off now.” He strode out without giving Avon time to retort, “I am never nice, Blake.” 

Avon said it anyway, on general principles, and followed Blake out of the room. There was only one benefit to following Blake, which was that he could admire the back view.  
  


* * *

This time, Avon gave way to impulse (one of the few benefits of this way of life, as the last few todays had shown) and, as Blake turned back to give him a hand, pulled him into the puddle. The expression of sheer foolish bafflement on the man’s face did give him some small satisfaction. 

“Avon! What the hell are you playing at?” 

Avon ground a handful of muddy water into Blake’s curls and waited for Blake to fight back. Blake got the idea and seemed to scuffle-fight him equally muckily after a while. Avon enjoyed the fight, and also enjoyed Blake pressed hard, and getting harder, between his legs. 

Blake muttered something about “unprovoked attacks” and tried to shake him off. 

_If you only knew,_ Avon thought, _you have been a very epitome of provocation for the last fortnight, and I haven’t laid a finger on you_. It wasn’t fingers he was thinking about, though. He settled down to ride, cock against cock, his pleasure only slightly hampered by the way Blake kept asking him to stop. 

_Oh, I forgot,_ he thought acidly to Blake, _you haven’t made any impossible demands on anyone for the last twenty minutes, so there it is._

Not that telling him to stop _should_ be impossible, but the last few days had had a fairly deleterious effect on Avon’s personality. His body remained convinced that it hadn’t had sex in weeks, and determined to do something about it. His mind was equally convinced that it had a right to the pleasures it had been enjoying on a daily basis. It was a totally unreasonable combination, but difficult to shift. 

“All right, Blake, talk about it later!” he panted, grinding himself down on Blake’s cock. 

“This isn’t what I want,” Blake said. Avon knew that tone. Not that that mattered, because it was what _he_ wanted, and Blake was giving a fair impression of liking it too. 

“Why not?” he asked, mainly just to keep Blake talking while he slid and dragged himself that so-necessary few millimetres against the stiffness of Blake’s cock. 

“Because if you can’t stand to be on the same ship or planet as me half the time it’s a bit of a big bloody clue we shouldn’t be in the same bed!” Blake said, in a sort of bellowed whisper. “And bloody Vroden is going to be peering down our muddy necks as soon as we show up on their sensors.” 

“Don’t care!” said Avon sulkily. 

Blake slapped him in the face. “If you don’t care, don’t know the first thing about me and care less, go and find somebody willing!” 

“I’ve tried,” Avon snapped, “but it seems I’d rather have you!” He mentally cursed the time vortex for leading him into bad habits. 

“I don’t care about the nasty seamy details of your sex life,” Blake told him, “it’s just that I’d rather not be part of it, if it’s all the same to you.” Avon wondered for an instant if Blake had gone to the same appalling but exclusive public-school that had been visited upon him: the inmates made rather a thing of deadly sarcasm politely delivered. He himself had been good at it. This thought did not stop the remark hurting his feelings, although it also didn’t stop him going on with what he was doing. 

“And if that won’t stop you, I can hear Vroden crashing through the undergrowth in this direction,” Blake told him. 

“I’m not trying to hurt you, or embarrass you, but I don’t think I can stop,” he admitted with difficulty. 

Blake looked into his eyes, and apparently took that as true. 

“Blake, I promise, if you just let me have a couple of seconds of this, I’ll be out of the way in another two seconds and never embarrass you again.” After all, in tomorrow’s today, this Blake would never have existed, and nor would this version of himself. 

Vroden-the-Verminous started talking when he was still some way away. “That you under all that, Blake?” he boomed cheerfully. 

“I don’t believe that. It would take you longer than two seconds to do your trousers up,” Blake whispered to him. 

_“Damn_ the trousers, just let me finish!” Avon snarled into Blake’s neck. 

“Well, this is already as stupid as it gets, so the situation won’t get any more ridiculous if I...” muttered Blake, and slid a hand into the back of the contested garment. 

Avon entertained himself with brief swift visions of how to do this with more forethought: perhaps stuffing a certain irritatingly-verbose mouth with his demanding cock, or if he _must_ jump on Blake, at least he should have filled his pockets with lubricant and bondage-gear before doing it. This would only give Blake the wrong... the wrong impression... He was accustomed to better sex than this, and quite a lot of it lately, so he’d better stop moaning. Next time, not that there would be one, he’d better bring a gag _each_ if he was thinking about bondage gear. _Cut down on the...noises a bit,_ he thought, punctuating the mental comment with a groan. 

The pressure felt indecently good, especially with Blake’s fingers beginning to take liberties with him behind, but he didn’t want to save the luxury of bare flesh for his hinder parts when his cock would like it so much. His own fingers undid Blake’s cock: half-stiff, almost in a condition to work with, and frantically encouraged it. When Blake’s cock was all the way up, and rather damp, he sank onto it with a rapturous sigh. That was what he wanted, and he was capable of ignoring the sulky expression on Blake’s face (which wouldn’t matter in a few minutes), especially since he butted his head under Blake’s chin where he wouldn’t get a discouraging view of it, even accidentally. Sight was overrated when touch and pressure and heat felt so good. He didn’t know whether to shove up to get more of the finger prodding his arse or down to get more of Blake’s cock grinding against his. He was giddy; gravity would settle the question, except that as he flopped down, the finger slipped all the way in. It felt shockingly good: he’d have tried telling Blake that if he hadn’t actually been dissolving. 

He was alone, the next minute, and the discontinuity was unpleasant. Humans were naturally constructed to expect some sensations (wetness, another heavy panting body, exhaustion) after orgasm, and to find that the next second after the last pulse of his orgasm was later, without any of the normal feelings of sexual aftermath, was obviously less comfortable. This time, the damn thing had just reset-to-zero without mercy. It hadn’t even waited for him to reach the end of the day, he was in bed now. 

Still, the good news was, all he had to do was work through a number of sexual variations, in order, until he happened to hit on the one that unjammed the temporal switch that was causing the problem.

* * *

The next day, he started to think through the problem over his first cup of coffee. He’d tried masturbation, and that hadn’t worked. Frottage, and _that_ hadn’t worked. What would be his next patented foolproof method of seduction? Well, ‘seduction’ would be stretching it a bit considering his lack of emotional interest in (anyone, but particularly Blake). He decided on something two letters shorter, and had to hastily invent a joke to explain his sudden snigger to Vila. 

Yes. Fellatio, definitely. It had the obvious advantages that it could be used discreetly, in a confined space, and that however much the man in question might object to the concept his body wouldn’t object to the reality. 

He decided subcontrol 7 counted as a confined space, invented a contrived excuse for an engineer to help him in there, and by the time Blake objected he was in Avon’s mouth, and Avon was so busy that Blake couldn’t object any more. 

Avon was looking forward to Blake being grateful—and he’d _missed_ sucking cock, the slide and suck and _taste_ of it. He had to touch himself, as well, not really wanking but just consoling his aching cock while most of his concentration was taking care of his mouthful. The noises they were both making were quite erotic as well: the wet rhythm of Blake sliding back and forth in his mouth, and his own tonguing and licking and humming and sucking work on that responsive cock. Difficult to think, he loved this so much, and he ought to be deciding what to treat himself to when Blake had come _(careful!)_ but he ought to be thinking that out rather than letting Blake wander away with the impression he’d settle for anything. Somewhere between _can’t let myself!_ and _can’t not!_ he found himself too busy having an explosive orgasm to worry about his pride. 

Again the aftermath was unpleasant. If one’s mouth is stretched around something very large, it is bound to be disconcerting to find it empty the next second, and he noticed his hands twitch as if they wanted something to hold, too. 

He told himself, very firmly, that one had to be rational about the irrational, or there would be no getting through this at all. Anyway, if he had anything to worry about it would be tomorrow, seeing that he was being systematic about all this. After fellatio (sucking) came fellatio (being sucked), and it was a lot more difficult to encourage an oblivious observer to do that. He started sorting through the possibilities in his mind, but had only got as far as “wild planet: penile snakebite on toilet stop” and decided that that scenario wouldn’t convince anyone outside a bad pornvid, when he fell asleep.

* * *

Avon spent most of the next today wishing desperately he could come up with a better idea than “penile snakebite” and failing. Oh well, he could afford a day off. It was only time. His time. All the time he had. 

He shuddered. 

And something about the idea of tricking Blake into it appeared indefinably unpleasant. Strange. It hadn’t bothered him at all with the others. Of course, since they had all been reliably salivating at his approach, at least they’d get something out of it. 

Around about his fifth deep heartfelt sigh, a deferential voice made itself heard. “If I might make a suggestion, sir?” it asked. Avon froze in utter shocked stillness. It wasn’t the voice that bothered him, it was the fact that he had programmed it in, and Zen had used it as ordered. Zen choosing it as a mode of interaction was something new. 

“Yes, Zen?” he asked cautiously. 

“I am aware of the current situation, sir. Mr Orac informed me.” 

“It’s the first I’ve heard of it that you’re on speaking terms,” Avon muttered to himself. 

Zen, which had excellent hearing, said, “Perhaps Mr Orac has his deficiencies as a gentleman’s personal gentleman, sir. He would certainly not be proposed for membership of the Junior Ganymede. However, he was instrumental in informing me of the course of events.” 

“How exactly did he do that, Zen?” 

“He arranged for recording video data and displaying it to me, sir.” 

“And you believed it?” Avon asked doubtfully. 

“After he had shown me several versions of the same day, sir, I began to feel the balance of probabilities was shifting in his favour.” 

“What exactly would you suggest I do now?” Avon felt a little embarrassed at asking, because Zen was a computer, but on the other hand Zen appeared to think of itself as a discreet and intelligent valet at present. Also, he’d never quite trusted Orac not to be prurient in some obscure way, and at least Zen was reassuringly inhuman about its lack of interest in other people’s sex lives. And a P. G. Wodehouse character would never tell him to... 

“Seduce Blake, sir,” Zen offered. 

Avon spluttered. “How would you imagine I could do that?” 

“It doesn’t appear that he is uninterested, sir. I imagine the normal method would be efficacious.” 

Avon briefly wondered whether that would be ‘the normal method’ as viewed by a computer or ‘the normal method’ as viewed by a valet. Neither concept was particularly consoling. 

“But Blake doesn’t like me. He’s irrational enough to regard that as important.” 

“He _does_ like you, sir. He just thinks he ought not to.” 

To his own irritation, Avon was pleased. 

“It’s understandable, sir,” Zen continued deferentially, “that he might wish for a few preliminaries.” 

“This is _sex_ , Zen, it’s nothing personal.” 

“Mr Orac’s extensive reference databanks on the subject...” 

_I was right,_ Avon decided, _Orac is prurient._

“...might offer some possible useful hints as to a possible course of action. If Blake does not wish to be approached by someone who has never shown any interest, however slight, in him personally, you might use the peculiarities of your situation to increase your chances of success.” 

“But that’s...” _Lying? Cheating? Yes, but it’s a bit late trying to put on some sort of public show about my morals,_ Avon continued to himself, _and is it really worse than leaping on him the way I have been? At least, if I talk to him, I’ll be giving him something he wants in return for something I want._ “I’ll consider it,” he replied shortly. 

Avon went about the distasteful business of intimacy with typical efficiency. 

Drinks first, that was simplest. Finding out Blake’s favourite drinks and getting the rounds in, after that, as if he had taken the trouble to notice, to be thoughtful about Blake’s wishes, was simplicity itself. And seducing people when they were drunk-but-not-too-drunk was proverbial. 

The drinks were an odd mixture of the proletarian (Zun-Argol beer was slightly-flavoured water, Avon considered) and the aristocratic (on the other hand, sharing Denepaese brandy with anyone was never going to be a penance. Affording it was one of the few benefits offered by his current line of work). After a few evenings of this, Blake, who hid a sharp mind somewhere in that woolly-looking head, asked Avon to for-god’s-sake-stop-pretending-to-like-that-swill. 

Avon, rather thrown, replied, “Well, why do _you_ drink it then?” 

“Got into the habit of it somewhere, never bothered to get out of it. It’s cheap, after all, even if that’s not an issue nowadays. Sit down and drink something else.” 

Avon poured himself a fifth glass of Denepaese brandy. Gorgeous. And so was Blake. He himself was beginning to feel just a little foggy, so he’d better get Blake drinking the Denepa quickly, while he could still hold a plan in his head. Which wasn’t easy. He was laughing at something Blake had just said, Blake had a surprising touch of wit when you could derail his conversation from politics, and although he knew he was trying to do something, he kept forgetting what it was. 

Well, he could remember what it was, because Blake was sitting on the edge of the table near him, so he was practically _looking_ at it, but he ought to be thinking clearly and rationally, ready to grab Blake the instant he got drunk. 

Since he was beginning to slur his own words by now, it wouldn’t, wouldn’t take... 

“You can go ahead,” Blake told him calmly. “I don’t mind.” 

“What?” said Avon. 

“Seducing me,” Blake said. 

“What makes you think...” 

“One, I’m good at guessing. Two, you might have wanted to get me drunk, but you got there first. Three, you’ve been staring at my crotch for half an hour.” 

“It’s a good view,” Avon said, leering because he was damned if he’d admit to feeling embarrassed. 

“Avon.” 

“Yes?” 

“Let’s teleport back up now. People are beginning to notice.” 

Avon, who had been drunk enough to forget where he was, agreed. “But I thought,” he said, as they melted back in, “I thought you...” He shut up fast, recognising Vila. 

“I’ll just make sure Avon’s all right, Vila,” Blake said. 

“Didn’t think anyone _could_ get him drunk,” Vila muttered, as Avon followed Blake in the direction of the cabins. 

“What were you saying?” Blake asked, in the decent privacy of his cabin. 

Avon focussed, with an effort. “I thought you didn’t, wouldn’t, would be the sentimental type.” 

“Can you really see me in a white wedding dress? Show the blood a bit, for our line of work. Although I’d hate it if you just jumped me during one of our arguments,” Blake continued. “Romantic love, no, but I do like to feel I’m in bed with someone who likes me.” 

Avon ran a quick mental systems-check, and decided he was drunk enough to risk the truth. “I _do_ like you. I just have no idea _why_ ,” he admitted. 

Blake seemed to find that funny. “I think that explains a lot,” he said. “You don’t have much patience with anything being irrational, even if it’s you.” He stroked a finger down Avon’s cheek to his lips. Avon opened his mouth and nipped it gently. 

“I could see myself getting out of the habit of biting my fingers,” Blake remarked, “if I have you to do it for me.” 

“Shall we see what else I can do for you?” 

“Impatient?” 

“Perhaps,” said Avon, panting a little as his drunken fingers got to grips with the extremely tight trousers. 

“Much as I’m in favour of you wearing them—or _not_ wearing them—” Blake told him, “maybe I should do that. I’m sober.” 

So Avon just lay on the bed and writhed while Blake tried to undo them. 

“You’re not helping, you know.” 

“I know,” Avon said, rather smugly. “Nice, isn’t it?” 

“Well, if that’s what you want,” Blake said, “I’ll just have to see if I can ruin them for you.” He started to rub Avon’s cock and balls in their warm leather nest. The leather started to feel like an extra, appallingly-sensitive, layer of skin. 

“All right, I’ll stay still.” 

“Good lad, Kerr, I’ll have you out of that.” 

Avon decided not to protest about the terminology. He wanted to be out of that, and to be had, in that order. He grinned foggily at nothing in particular, and let Blake peel him, with a lot of attention and kisses. 

“Nothing under them. Shocking,” Blake said, happily, and began to lick. 

Avon protested faintly. It wouldn’t be fair if he came, and vanished, without giving Blake anything in return. 

Blake withdrew his mouth to ask what was the matter. 

“Not fair. Want to do something for you.” 

“I ought to frame this moment,” Blake muttered, “and even then nobody would believe it. I don’t think you’re the sort of person to just go to sleep and not take care of your partner, though.” 

He licked Avon’s cock with relish, and raised his head to say, “I’ll have a go after you,” before lowering it. 

Avon started to say “But I can’t...” He couldn’t think of how to go on from there. He was drunk, and there was no believable way to say _I just vanish into thin air when I come,_ and Blake had just sucked him all the way in, so he was losing what was left of his mind. He wanted to cram himself into Blake’s mouth until there was nothing of him left outside the wet heat. He wanted, at very least, to thrust like fury. So he kept quite still, apart from his hands, which caressed Blake’s hair with obsessive tenderness, as if it were something precious that he would never be able to touch again. Which he wouldn’t. This Blake was a possibility that would vanish, never was, never would be, just for giving him pleasure. He was aware that a small and probably imaginary part of himself wanted to cry. God he _must_ be drunk, he wouldn’t even _think_ that in his right mind. He let his cock rear, swell, overshadow the small-and-imaginary part. His blood thundered in his ears and cock, and there was nothing but coming, nothing but Blake, had to hold on, had to touch...

_Oh shit._ No matter how good that had been, it hadn’t been worth it. He was in bed, alone, and his body felt sleepy again, and his body hadn’t just had brilliant sex. Again. And he just wanted to hold and touch Blake. He slept.  
  


* * *

Avon woke up, still wanting to touch Blake. He got up and dressed in a hurry, to the beginning strains of Pachelbel’s _Canon_ , to distract himself. 

Zen went through the motions, provided the tea, paused, and said, “I understand the attempt was as yet unsuccessful, sir?” 

“Yes.” 

Today, Avon thought, he’d try something that didn’t involve being drunk. Being drunk had a disastrous effect on his self-control, which he never remembered because it was such a rare event in his life. 

Instead, he spent the day on a relatively high-flown intellectual plane, finding out about Blake’s favourite books and orators and politicians. It was like being at university again. He disappeared into a happy haze of databanks, rare contraband paper books, and wobbly video clips that looked as if the cameraman was trying to duck to avoid having things thrown at him, which he probably was. Actually the people Blake admired most weren’t _complete_ idiots, although they could all have been improved by a healthy dose of cynicism. Avon started to take notes. 

Four todays later, Avon opened his mouth during one of Blake’s perorations, and disagreed. That wasn’t unusual, but he then backed it up with well-argued quotations. Blake looked more closely at him, and then threw himself passionately into the argument. Even though Avon had done his homework, it took every bit of effort he had to stay ahead. The others drifted out. 

Every so often, Vila stuck his head round the door, and reported, “Avon and Blake are _still_ arguing.” 

Avon could hear Jenna, faintly, saying, “Are they all right? One of them ought to have stormed off in a huff by this time.” 

_How childish_ , he thought distantly, before returning to what exactly Dilgrath had said about mass non-violent insurrection, and whether it had been misquoted, and how long it would have taken Dilgrath to be shot down by the authorities if he’d lived under the present administration, and what sort of approach it would take for _Blake_ not to be killed, which was the practical detail Avon was most interested in. 

“Anyway, why are you joining in, all of a sudden?” asked Blake. 

Avon, who wasn’t averse to nicking other people’s good lines, said, “I’m interested in your work.” Judging by the look in Blake’s eyes, Avon had managed precisely the quality of dry flirtation he’d been trying for. 

“That isn’t all, is it?” said Blake, cautiously. 

Avon smiled up at him. “Of course not.” He put a hand on Blake’s arm. “Would you like me to come up and see your textbooks?” 

“Good idea,” said Blake. 

In Blake’s cabin, Avon riffled through rare contraband paper books desultorily, while Blake kicked his shoes off and lay on the bed. 

“Why don’t you put them all into electronic form?” asked Avon. “It makes indexing a lot more difficult to use paper.” 

Blake gave him a ludicrously sorrowful look. “Then you actually _did_ come up to see my textbooks?” 

“Maybe not,” Avon said, tossing the book lightly to land on the desk. He sat down on the bed within easy reach. “What else did you have to offer?” 

Blake grabbed him. 

Avon could feel what else Blake had to offer. He left that day’s higher intellectual plane with a thump, unless you consider the concept _my god that’s enormous!_ to fit the political discussion he’d suddenly lost interest in. His head whirled, his cock pricked up, and there he was, rolled underneath Blake, although he couldn’t quite figure out which of them had got them into that position. 

“What d’you think,” Blake said conversationally, “is going to be most likely to get you out of this bloody time thingy, me on top or you on top?” 

“Well, I’ve been fantasising about you fucking me for as long as it’s been going on...” Avon’s voice trailed off, and he nearly swallowed his tongue in delayed shock. 

“I’ve always wanted to really surprise you,” said Blake, going and getting him a drink of water. “Here, sip this. Slowly.” 

Avon sipped, slowly. _What a way to tell me._ He’d been fantasising about being fucked by Blake for a long time, and now it was finally going to happen, and Blake had put him off by surprising him. _Well,_ his own mind pointed out logically, _he couldn’t very well tell you afterwards, if it didn’t work._

“Who told you?” 

“Orac. He said he’d got tired of waiting for you to get it right, maybe it would help to have me working on it, though he doubted it. Didn’t you notice I was late up? Took him a long time to convince me, even with vistape footage. So tell me all about it. Probably helps to have someone who isn’t a computer to talk to.” 

Avon took a deep breath, drained the glass of water, and told Blake all about it. He forbade Blake to laugh or interrupt, although he noticed a couple of suspicious lip-twitches at odd moments. When he’d finished, Blake said, “That it, then?” 

“Yes.” 

“It’s probably me fucking you, then, because you have been thinking about that a lot.” He reached into a bedside drawer and took out a tube of lubricant. 

Avon sighed, and undid his trousers. 

“Oh. Sorry about that. Teach me to have a shocking conversation at the wrong moment,” said Blake, sounding rather contrite. He removed Avon’s trousers carefully. “Want me to try to un-shrink you a bit?” Avon’s cock nodded, and Blake began to massage it. Avon’s cock went through all the post-fainting-fit states-of-mind, beginning with _Where am I?,_ and settled on _I think I could stand up now_ in record time. 

Despite this, Avon said, “I’ve changed my mind.” He wondered whether he would now have to spend a wearisome hour consoling Blake’s sexual ego. 

Instead, Blake said, simply, “Why?” 

So Avon told him. “I feel sad, afterwards. Every time, and it just gets worse. I come, and then I’ve got nothing to hold, it’s as if it never happened. And now...” He braced himself to tell Blake the worst of it. “Now I even like you, and I’ve put a lot of work in finding out about you, and if I get out of the time vortex, it’ll all never have existed. Do you know, even if I have to live the same sodding awful day for the rest of my entire life, I’d prefer it to losing you.” 

_Did I really say that?_ Avon wondered. _It’s bad enough just thinking it._ There was a strange shimmer in the air. He blinked, and things returned to normal. 

Without speaking, Blake kissed his eyes, then his lips. 

“One of these todays, I accused you of being the sentimental type, and you said, no, white wedding-dresses would show the blood terribly in our line of work,” Avon said unsteadily. 

“Marriage is an outmoded bourgeois convention,” Blake said, with dignity. “But I’d still like to keep you.” 

“Maybe,” Avon said hopefully, “we could have sex without letting me come.” 

“I wouldn’t put up with that,” Blake told him. 

“Then what?” 

“We’ll have sex. If it works, and we’ve forgotten all about it, I will listen to the audio file I recorded earlier explaining all this, and I will seduce you, whatever works until we’re back together. If not, I will forgive you for melting into thin air, and you can spend tomorrow afternoon explaining my failures as a strategist and tomorrow night doing it all again.” 

Avon sighed. “Optimist.” 

Blake sighed. “Pessimist. Well, we’ll just bloody see how pessimistic you can manage to be when I’m screwing you rigid.” 

Avon shuddered with lust. “Not very pessimistic about that, it has to be said,” he admitted. “Of course, that lack of pessimism is a mental aberration caused by sex.” 

Blake kissed him, hard, with a lot of suggestive tongue-thrusting, and slid a wet finger to dilate his arse. Avon writhed. 

“Keep still,” Blake breathed, “or I’m going to miss a moving target, and you wouldn’t want that, would you?” 

“I refuse to believe something that size could miss,” Avon said, with towering mock-dignity, but stopped moving. 

Blake inched into him slowly. Avon started to tell him exactly how good that felt, panting and gasping between phrases. Blake sucked and chewed at an earlobe. Avon couldn’t tell him, then, anything more coherent than “Do it!” in a rasp of sheer desperation. All the other inches went in at once, magnificently hard and sure, and Avon screamed, immediately following the cry with “no it didn’t hurt, Blake, don’t fucking dare stop!” 

“If you’re sure,” Blake said, and repeated the gesture, roughly stroking Avon’s cock with his free hand. 

Avon cursed, snarled, flattened himself upwards as close into Blake’s body as he could push, and howled as he came, feeling Blake come gushing into him just as he finished. They both collapsed in a tumble of limbs, panting. 

“Want something to clean up with?” Blake asked, trying to disentangle himself. 

“No!” Avon snapped, pulling him back down. 

“You know you’re going to be sore if you keep that in you all night,” Blake said reasonably, “even if it does feel nice now.” 

“All right, you can have your cock back, but stay here.” 

Blake seemed to get the idea, retrieving himself cautiously and then holding Avon close. 

Avon, deciding Blake couldn’t possibly slip away while he wasn’t looking, fell into a deep relieved sleep.

* * *

His heart sank. Empty bed, Pachelbel’s _Canon._ He’d failed. 

“Good morning, sir,” said Zen. “Mr Orac appears to have provided me with the wrong recording. Excuse me while I rectify the situation.” Albinoni’s _Adagio in G Minor_ swelled to fill the room like the heavenly music of the spheres. 

Even that sublime music couldn’t quite drown out the sound of what Blake apparently regarded as singing, which was just beginning from the shower. 

Avon, realising he was unbelievably sore and sticky, was suffused with sheer relief. 

“Blake? Blake, does it _have_ to be ‘We Shall Overcome’ at seven-thirty in the morning?” he shouted plaintively. 

Blake came out of the shower, looking gorgeous in a fetching arrangement of water droplets and a towel. “Honeymoon’s over already, then.” he observed. 

“Shut up and drink your tea,” Avon said, noticing a distinctly plebeian half-pint mug of strong sweet milky tea beside his Earl Grey. 

“I’ve got a better idea,” said Blake, leering. 

“I believe it is time for me to retire to the butler’s pantry and polish the silver, sir,” said Zen. 

“What?” said Blake, apparently momentarily derailed from his train of thought. 

“Have you ever read P. G. Wodehouse?” 

“Ages ago, yes,” said Blake. 

“Well, I programmed a subroutine into Zen. I’ve never found his normal quasi-ecclesiastical style quite right for early mornings...” 

Blake’s gape dissolved into a grin. “You actually programmed him to be Jeeves?” 

“Essentially, yes,” said Avon. “If you’re about to do it all again, by the way, just to be sure and a few more times for luck, I’d love to, but I’m still a little sore so we’d better be cautious.” 

The towel dropped, and Blake lunged, but carefully. 

Avon gasped rapturously and sank gratefully beneath the onslaught of exquisitely-cautious foreplay. 

His hand reached out absent-mindedly. Luckily it met, not two cups of scalding-hot tea, but a fresh tube of lubricant to match the one lying wrung-out on the floor. 

As he passed it to Blake, he spared a moment to be grateful to the universe in general that he had the best discreet electronic gentleman’s personal gentleman ever built. 


End file.
